James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

CG Art

Contact

or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

Permissions

All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

What do other countries in the world really look like? Standard tourist photos don’t give you genuine slices of life.

The website “MapCrunch.com” allows you to view random images from the vast Google street view archives. You can select from 18 different countries around the world and choose whether you want country roads or not. The examples above are from Spain, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Missouri (USA).

This would be a fun motif-generator for the tiny landscape painting exercise in yesterday’s post. Press the button and paint the scene in 10 minutes or less!

4 comments:

Hi James. I've been using Street View as a ref for some time. Unlimited buildings, vehicles, etc. to use. Google told me that artists can use Street View images as references without fear of copyright infringement. I've actually sold several large Street View paintings to Google for their San Francisco and London offices. I also run a blog called the Virtual Paintout. You should check it out. This month is Rio. We should talk more about this subject.

I am usually less than overwhelmed by tourist photos too. They seem to go for extreme lighting and extreme views, so they are not good for reminding you of what you remembered or loved about the place, which usually has nothing to do with those things. These are more normal--nice.